U.S.A.: woman charged with killing and corpse’s desecration of husband

A woman was indicted on murder and other charges alleging she killed her husband, stuffed his remains into three matching suitcases and dumped them off the Virginia coast.

Melanie McGuire was indicted Tuesday by a state grand jury on charges of murder, desecration of a corpse, perjury and a weapons violation. She had already pleaded not guilty to a murder charge in June.

Her husband, William T. McGuire, was fatally shot between April 28 and May 5, 2004, according to the indictment. His dismembered body floated ashore in his own matching luggage in the Chesapeake Bay near Norfolk, Virginia, over three days in May.

State Attorney General Peter C. Harvey has said authorities believe the wife shot her husband in their apartment before the body was dismembered and placed in suitcases that were dumped off the Virginia coast, the AP reports.

McGuire, 32, could be sentenced to 30 years to life in prison if convicted. Her lawyer, Henry Klingeman, did not immediately return a telephone call Wednesday. A.M.